Daily poll: Who was responsible for the payroll tax impasse?

AP photoSen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, is interviewed in Washington after the Senate passed legislation to extend Social Security payroll tax cut and jobless benefits for just two months. The House acted on the measure late yesterday.

Americans watched yet another political drama play out on Capitol Hill — this time over whether to extend the payroll tax cut and jobless benefits — leading to a simple question for Congress: Can't you all just get along? For once?

"It's like, 'Kids, kids, kids,'" said Brenda Bissett, a lawyer from Santa Clarita, Calif., as she waited for coffee Wednesday at a Starbucks in downtown Los Angeles. "It's just frustrating that there's no compromise. I think that both parties have been listening too much to their far ends."

Regardless of their backgrounds, incomes or political leanings, people say they're angry and downright disgusted by the posturing in Washington after the Senate approved a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut and adjourned for the holidays. Then House leaders balked at it but finally acted late yesterday.

If lawmakers hadn't acted by Jan. 1, payroll taxes would have jumped almost $20 a week, or $1,000 a year, for a worker earning $50,000, and as much as $82 a week, or $4,272 a year, for a household with two high-paid workers. What's more, about 6 million people could have lost unemployment benefits, and Medicare payments to doctors could have been slashed.

"The Senate ... should have tried to stay and resolve this for the American people," said Jorge Gonzalez, an accounting clerk at a law firm in Miami. "Partisan politics should be set aside for the best interest of the country."

President Barack Obama urged congressional leaders to return to Washington to pass a short-term payroll tax cut extension before New Year's Day, promising in return to start working immediately on a full-year extension. House Republicans insisted that both chambers instead negotiate a full-year agreement by the end of the year.

"I wish those guys would come and finish the job they started and deserted," said Sandi Dumich, a retired teacher from Schaumburg, Ill., who has taken a part-time job in a neuropsychologist's office to help pay bills.

At Augie & Ray's, a popular eatery in East Hartford, Conn., the consensus among several diners yesterday was that the partisan bickering was eroding their already shaky faith in Congress. To some, that was just as frustrating as the idea that their paychecks could shrink.

"It's us, the average Joe, that's getting caught in the middle," said Ray Ramsey, a retired utility meter technician who works part time for a medical-supply company.

Fellow diner Richard Longo, who owns a building-maintenance business, said there's a lot of blame to go around.

"I truly believe that if the sides were reversed, if we had a Republican president and a Democratic Congress, we'd still be going through the same thing," he said.

But Scott Gessner, a Boston man who works with homeless women and children, said he's suspicious of House Republican demands for a yearlong extension.

"We can't repeal Bush's tax hikes for the extremely wealthy, but we are going to let this one expire, which affects millions of millions of millions of more people and the middle class?" Gessner said. "What I'd like to know is ... what do the Democrats have to give up to get the one-year bill?"

But almost all interviewed by the Associated Press agreed that the partisan acrimony and 11th-hour crises in Washington are getting old.

"It seems they want to bring down everything to the last minute and then figure it out," said David Kaiser, a researcher at a Miami college who said a tax increase wouldn't affect him significantly. Kaiser wanted "some way to send that message to them: That's not what they're hired for."